Excerpt from WIP *Jade*

This is just a few lines from my work in progress, which I'm calling Jade at the moment. Luki's having a conversation with his five-year-old great niece, a conversation we all hope we will never have to have. How well do you think he handles it?



In the sunroom—a bright, comfortable space Ruthie had carved out of the living room of their small apartment, Luki sat down in the rocker.

Before he could speak, Jade stretched and, holding her body rigid, pronounced, “They’re never coming back.”

Luki hugged her, then gently but firmly lifted her away from his chest. “Jade, for us to talk you need to sit up and look at me, so I can see that you understand. Okay?”

Jade complied, sitting sideways across his knees in her purple poodle pajamas, the fuzzy poodle tails moving dramatically as she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself. Sonny thought that sometimes she seemed like such a grown-up tiny child. “I think I’m ready, Uncle Luki.”

He chuckled, smiled a gentle smile Sonny’d never seen him give anyone else, and shook his head. “Well, I’m not ready, Jade,” he said. “But we’ll do the best we can.” The smile faded, and he glanced at Sonny, then turned to gaze for a second toward the yellow-white California sunlight sparkling off the pool, perhaps gathering courage, or logic and comfort for a five-year-old mind and heart.

“Jade,” he said, looking back at the little girl’s wide-eyed face. “You remember when you came to visit Uncle Sonny and me last year? And you wanted to see Bear?”

She nodded, slow and solemn, and Sonny thought his heart might already be breaking, even if hers wasn’t.

“And I told you then that Bear had died, and I showed you where we buried him, and you planted flowers there for him, right?”

Her voice a thin whisper, Jade said, “You said he couldn’t come back, he wasn’t sleeping, he just wasn’t alive anymore. You said he could never come back.”

Luki nodded, and looking at the lines gathering around his eyes, Sonny one again thought his own heart was splitting. But before Luki could speak, Jade spoke again.

“He was an old man dog, you said! That’s why he had to die! But my daddy isn’t an old man! My mommy’s pretty, and she has my baby brother in her tummy! What about my baby brother?” She seemed angry now, lashing out at Luki. Stupidly, Sonny wanted to rush over and protect his husband from her, especially when he saw the small contortions Luki was putting his face through—surely to stop tears.

“No,” Luki finally said. “No, Jade, they didn’t die because they were old, like Bear. Daddy had an accident and died, and Mommy had a different kind of accident and died, too, and when she died your baby brother died, because he couldn’t live outside her tummy yet.”

If Sonny expected either Luki or Jade to break down in tears once those facts were stated, he was wrong. They looked at each other, quite soberly, and Jade asked, just as if double-checking her facts, “They can’t ever come back?”

“No,” Luki confirmed. “They died, They aren’t alive any more, and they can never come back.”

Jade nodded. “Oh,” she said.

After a moment, Jade more or less collapsed against Luki’s chest, and his strong arm encircled her as he started to rock the chair in a gentle motion. The shadows outside had grown quite a bit longer before either of them stirred. Jade pushed up into a sitting position and Luki stopped rocking, looking at her expectantly.

“I’m tired, Uncle Luki. I want to go take my nap.”

“That’s a good idea, little girl that I love. But you didn’t eat anything since your cereal this morning. How about if you have a cup of milk and a cookie before you go to sleep?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not hungry.”

“Yeah, but you know, Uncle Sonny gets really worried about people when they don’t eat.”

Sonny’s brows shot up, and he made sure Luki caught his oh-no-you-didn’t look.

“Oh, fine,” Jade said, and Sonny was quite sure there was an eyeroll attached. She hopped down from Luki’s lap and waited for him. She took his hand once he was standing, but it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere until Sonny was ready, too. She took his hand as well, and led them to the kitchen where she drank her milk and ate her cookie, swinging her legs from her chair.

“Those cookies,” she said, on her way to her room for a nap. “My mommy made them. My mommy always makes really good cookies.”